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SAN BENITO — Hometown fans are waiting to roar as the Rio Grande Valley’s biggest scoreboard screen starts flaring purple flashes marking the Greyhounds’ touchdowns.

When Bobby Morrow Stadium opened in 2006, the scoreboard, at 74-feet-wide by 45-feet-tall, featuring a 22-foot screen, might have stood as the biggest high school video scoreboard in Texas, according to TexasBob.com’s Texas Football Stadium Database.

Now, school district officials are planning the stadium’s $1.7 million renovation featuring an $840,000 scoreboard boasting a 74-foot-wide by 34-foot-wide digital screen.

“It’s going to be very big — the biggest in the Valley,” Superintendent Fred Perez said.

In December, officials are planning to begin installing the scoreboard’s big screen, expected to be ready to light up in time for the soccer and track seasons, he said.

As part of the package from Ace Sports, the screen’s going to feature dazzling dancing colors.

“We were told we’d have a variety of colors,” Perez said in an interview. “You can program them to flicker after touchdowns. I asked, ‘Can we turn it purple?’ They said, ‘Yes.’”

At the stadium christened for hometown Olympic hero Bobby Morrow, game nights are going to ignite under a glimmering color spectrum.

“We’ll be able to switch the lighting,” Perez said. “It’s called dancing lighting.”

For years, the stadium’s old screen’s been running up repair bills, he said.

“It is outdated,” Perez told school board members during a meeting Aug. 5. “We have constant repairs to make on it. It’s small. We’re limited when it comes to bringing in resources and bringing in sponsorships.”

Officials are counting on turning the new screen into a money-maker.

“We’re hoping it pays for itself,” Perez said in an interview. “The capabilities of this scoreboard are amazing. We’ll be able to do digital videos — a lot more graphics. We can have movie nights for the community.”

Now, officials are planning to develop an advertising program around the big screen, with money going to students’ educations, Perez said.

“There’s a lot of new businessess coming into town,” he said. “There’s sponsorships. We can do different kinds of fundraisers and events.”

As part of a marketing program, officials are planning to land sponsors, spotlighting them on the big screen.

“The company sits with us,” he said, referring to Ace Sports’ program. “They help us get vendors. We’re probably one of the only districts that doesn’t do somebody sponsoring like touchdowns, somebody sponsoring every first down. It’s ways to bring money to our students, to our district, and really ways for it to pay for itself.”

Under a contract, the company is offering financing at a 4.5% annual rate, he said.

As part of the deal, he said, the district won’t make its first payment for a year.

“It doesn’t affect our budget this year, then we have five to seven years to pay,” Perez said.

Under the renovation project, officials are also replacing the stadium’s original lighting.

For weeks, they reviewed proposals from companies offering lighting packages, with quotes ranging from $800,000 to $350,000, entering into a $347,000 contract with Techline Sports Lighting in Austin, Perez said.

Now, officials are requesting proposals for a $500,000 project aimed at resurfacing the stadium’s 400-meter track.

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